Is This the Ultimate MTB Retro Bike Barn Find?

We're at the G-Technic Show and Shine at the GTE bike Smallvans Classic and we've got

a few bits of nice American metal here with a really cool story behind them as well, in

amazing shape as well, absolutely beautiful. So I'm going to hand over to Dan who will

let us know a bit about the story behind these two bikes before we go into the spec on them

So this is Dan. Hi. So these were a little bit of a barn find

A bit earlier in the year, a neighbour came over to see me that I've lived opposite for

16 years. Her son unfortunately died about 8 years ago and she said, do you know anything about bikes

And I said, a little bit. She said, well my son used to build bikes

So I thought, build bikes, let me come and have a look. So I went across the road and there were these two weapons

And then I spent three hours having a chat with the mother

And yeah, it turns out this guy enjoyed his downhill racing. But it was a passion

He didn't compete. But he used to like going down mountains as fast as he could

So in 96, he went to the Chamonix Valley, saw these ski runs

and said, I've got to build myself a bike to go down here. So he did his research through the magazines because obviously no internet then

That was the way back then. And he ordered up all the components to build this Intense M1 and he didn do things by halves No certainly not So he spent a year ordering and buying the components building it and then he took it

over to the Chamonix Valley and in that photograph down there it was three days old

Amazing, amazing. And this was called Claudia. And I think his best time downhill, he used to race the cable cars

So the cable car took 15 minutes to get from top to bottom

He did it in 11 minutes. But yeah, I think I would have really liked the guy

Yeah, absolutely. Especially like the spec choices on these are impeccable. So are these Planet X BMF rims, I assume? Yeah

So it's super wide. You can work out what BMF stands for yourself

But it's not suitable for a family website like this. Yeah, AC cranks, chain ring

Amazing. And then the fork. So both me and Kev were both stumped by the fork

And Jamie from Mountain Manias let us know that it's a Mr. Dirt

It is a Mr. Dirt. Which I've never ever seen one. It's something I've read about

And yeah, I mean, he was a quantity surveyor by trade, so he used to document everything

And he actually kept the documentation on the Mr Dirt Forks Amazing But and he used to write all his notes and here the

invoices and this is what he paid back in 1997. Insane! Tenth spot and bracket swing on

So it's like Freeman Fork, 2448. Yeah. Wow! Wow! And the hope. And then obviously for

the Santa Cruz which was his daily yeah and he researched the forks and through

the years how much you came down in price down to 320 and so I want to go

into the spec on this one a bit because this is sort of you on the heckler this

is sort of your typical 90s UK rider early bike spec so you've got the mr

tea fork which was this your solid sort of uh everyman downhill fork uh oil damped obviously

and yeah it's just super solid super reliable probably not been serviced since the back in the

day probably still feels amazing makes its nice sloshing noises uh d521 rims there on are they

bulbs the hubs bulbs i think yeah uh and then an amoeba stem which was a an azonic coffee

which is one of the first upgrades I ever made for my bike when I was a kid

which yeah I like that a lot then FSA PowerPro cranks as well which were sort

of the an everyman crank as well that was super super cheap they were 25 quid a set and you could you could break a set really really easily but they were super cheap to replace so everyone had them they did them in loads of colors yeah uh yeah that is

a really cool bike and then original fun saddle as well so that's when fun that's their first

product line uh and they had a set of pedals that came out with that that had grip tape in the middle Yeah

I just like how he's upgraded to the hydraulics. Oh yeah, you've got the floating brake arm as well, sorry

Totally missed that. Yeah. So yeah, not disc compatible originally this frame, but then with the floating brake arm

yeah very cool. And this was a Tom Morris design. and then so it'd be a custom hub axle as well wouldn't it to fit the

floating brake in there but luckily it's all made by Hope so nice and easy yeah

two absolutely amazing bikes with a really cool story as well yeah well they

were saved because she wanted to give them to a bike charity so well I work

for a bike charity so I can't really disagree with that there is people that

work for bike charities that appreciate this kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. So they could take them apart and rebuild them

and I went, no, no, no, they've got to be kept. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely

And I love the Welter saddle on this as well. So these were in the magazines

They weren't particularly expensive, and they definitely weren't desirable, because that is an ugly saddle

but it's a cool piece of history. That's what he had on it

Yeah, mega. Mega. Thank you